Something Borrowed
by Paradisical815
Summary: All they wanted to do was bury their dead and get on with their lives, but fate had other, far more wonderful plans. Four girls with a secret even they don't know, a centuries old government conspiracy- and just a hint of magic. Post Serenity.
1. The Dead and The Dying

**_Something Borrowed _by Agape Love**

**A/N: Well, another self-insert fic :). Fanfiction, for me, has always been a way just to have fun, so I do a lot of self inserts. Nothing serious, just some fun. if it's not your cup of tea, you don't have to read it. But I DO want to be very clear- THIS IS A SELF INSERT FIC.**

**Summary:**** All the crew of Serenity wanted to do was bury their dead and mourn in peace. But nothing can ever be simple for them, can it? Four girls with a secret not even they know, a government conspiracy stretching half a millenium, and just a hint of magic- it's almost enough to make someone miss the Reavers.**

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><p><strong>Chapter One: The Dead and The Dying<strong>

Jayne Cobb wasn't exactly what folk would call the most virtuous of men. In fact, most would say he was downright crude, and they wouldn't be lying.

They were stopping by some deserted moon or another- Jayne had already forgotten the name- to bury their dead and try and move on with whatever kind of broken existence they could piece together with two of them gone. Dead. The ramp had lowered into the sand and Jayne stumbled out, anything to get away from Zoe's silent tears and Kaylee's stifled sobbing, away from Mal's stony face and from River's quiet brokenness. He stumbled out into the bright sunlight, a hand thrown up over his eyes and then he tripped over something solid and soft. Staggering around to see what it was, expecting something dead or dying, he saw the body of a girl and then another girl and then a third girl, and still another girl, so many girls, all next to each other but not orderly, eyes closed but clearly breathing. There was a blonde girl and a redhead and two brunettes, both with long- ridiculously long- hair and all of them with pretty faces and curvy little bodies all spread out over that sand.

Jayne's first thoughts weren't the most honorable- he was what he was, after all, and what he was sure wasn't a saint. But then he looked closer at one of the brunettes and realized that she was nothing more than a kid and although that'd never stopped him before, he saw the Shepard's disapproving look in his mind and any dishonorable thoughts were replaced with a sadness that Jayne found entirely unwelcome.

The dust from the landing had started to settle, much of the sand falling into place over the girls. They looked like they may have been out in the sun for a while, their skin turning pink and their lips dry and chapped. The least he could do, Jayne figured, was get them out of the sun. And that's what he was doing- hefting the first one, a tiny brunette with freckles all over her pretty little face- into his arms easy as anything when Simon came striding out of the ship, stopped in his tracks, and stared at Jayne. Jayne stared back defensively with the girl hanging limp in his arms.

"What?' he asked rudely. The doctor's mouth opened in that way he had, like a codfish, only he wasn't surprised. Just thinking.

"We've been here two minutes," said Simon in what he clearly thought was a tactful way. "What have you managed to damage already?"

"I didn't damage nothing. I found 'em like this." And he nodded to the other girls. Simon followed his gaze and Jayne watched his eyebrows lift.

"Well," said the doctor. "In that case."

"Figured I'd move 'em into the shade," said Jayne, nodding at the shadow cast by the ship and Simon shook his head.

"No, no- they're probably dehydrated. Bring them to the sick bay."

"What?"

"Bring them to the infirmary," said Simon, very slowly, "and I'll try to keep them alive."

"Captain ain't gonna like that," muttered Jayne, hoisting the girl up higher as he slowly ascended the ramp. Simon turned his back the mercenary but Jayne just barely heard him say:

"Mal doesn't want anymore death around him."

And it was true.

Turned out, Mal didn't very much care who was in the sick bay with the bodies of Wash and Book as long as he wasn't. So Simon went about his work, hooking the girls to IVs, watching their faces slowly fill with color and their lips return to normal wetness and Jayne waited with him, though he wasn't sure why, cause he sure didn't care for the doctor's company (liked him well enough but not enough to be around his dead buddies) and he didn't even know the girls and they weren't alive enough yet for him to want to screw them, so he figured it must have been the stress of the past few days messing with his head; he just wanted to know that someone as weak looking as those little things could live.

"How long till they wake up?" he grunted at Simon after half an hour, trying not to look at the lump under the sheet that was Wash or the other lump under that other sheet that was Book. Simon didn't even look at him, just went about the business of drawing blood from the blonde girl.

"I don't know," he said, holding the red vial up to the light, his brow furrowed. "Soon, hopefully. I'd like to know what they're doing on a moon that is famous for being unable to sustain life."

Jayne just grunted, arms crossed across his chest, and decided to stare at the blonde one. He'd have thought she was dead, that one, if it wasn't for her chest rising and falling slowly. Jayne then decided to watch her chest instead of her face.

There was strained silence until a few moments later. The blonde girl whose chest Jayne was watching made a noise that may have been either a moan or a groan but either way both Jayne and Simon started and stared at her. She started to turn, in the chair, her eyes still closed, her face very colorless. Simon grabbed a silver pan and held it up to her mouth just in time- she turned onto her side and vomited and both Simon and Jayne winced. When she'd finished retching she rolled over farther, off of the chair and onto the floor and Jayne, more out of reflex than actual kindness, moved to help her. She took a few stumbling steps forward and then tripped, reaching out blindly, and grabbed the sheet covering Wash and then his arm, dragging the sheet down with her as she fell to the floor. Simon knelt next to her quickly and Jayne froze, staring at Wash's ashen, lifeless face.

"I can't see," the girl was saying from the floor, her voice weak but insistent. "I can't see."

"You're in shock," said Simon as calmly as he could. "Your vision will probably return in a few minutes, but I need you to tell me how you got here."

The girl's head turned in his direction, her eyes red and wet and looking somewhere past him. Her face was very pale and a little green.

"I don't know," she said. She tried to stumble to her feet again and this time made it two steps before falling onto the body of Shepard Book. Jayne felt an irrational surge of anger but the girl reached out a hand, touched the Shepard's face and tried to stumble on, but fell again on the next step and this time Jayne caught her and lowered her to the ground. She was heavier than she looked; solid was the word.

"Help me," she was saying now. "Please help me."

She was on the ground, leaning back against the base of the chair containing the body of Shepard book, her head tilted back against the base as though her neck didn't have the strength to support her.

"Can you tell me the last thing you remember?" asked Simon, crouching next to her, a hand on her shoulder. Her head rolled in his direction and she blinked several times. Her lips were completely colorless.

"I was- I think I was in a car. I was going to school."

Simon exchanged a look of alarm with Jayne- cars were antiquated technology, something you read about in history textbooks. Only collectors of Earth That Was memorabilia had cars, and they certainly didn't drive those.

The girl turned and vomited again with a horrible sound on the floor, her body racking with violent spasms and she didn't seem to have the strength to sit up again when she was done; Simon had to pull her back up and her head flopped on her neck like a rag doll, her face covered in sweat and tears. She was blinking slowly, eyes roving around the room; Jayne noticed their extraordinary blue color as he crouched next to her. He was close enough to see every line, every curve of color in those eyes, and noticed that there was no gray or green, only blue, like the oceans he'd read about in old storybooks but had never seen for himself. She groaned again.

"Are you alright now?" Simon asked slowly. She gave what might have been either a cough or chuckle or wheeze and started to say something, but was cut off by a loud gasp followed by Wash sitting bolt upright and looking around wildly.

"Where the hell did those reavers go?" he shouted, his eyes crazy and his hair crazier.

Simon and Jayne, though they would deny it later, both screamed like little girls.

**TBC...**

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><p>Quote is from<em> Doctor Who.<em>


	2. Time

**Something Borrowed by Agape Love**

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><p><em>Time it took us<em>  
><em> To where the water was<em>  
><em> That's what the water gave me<em>  
><em> And time goes quicker<em>  
><em> Between the two of us<em>  
><em> Oh, my love, don't forsake me<em>  
><em> Take what the water gave me<em>

**Chapter Two: Time  
><strong>

As if it wasn't enough that Wash was suddenly not dead when he definitely should be, the equally-should-be-dead- Shepard decided to join in on the action as well, sitting upright like lightening the same way Wash had done, except with a yell instead of a gasp. Jayne and Simon shouted even louder in terror, scrambling away from the two should-be-dead-but-aren't men as the girl on the floor whimpered and the girls in the other chairs remained extremely unconscious.

"The reavers!" shouted Wash, jumping out of the chair, his eyes bright. "Where the hell am I?"

And then he retched all across the floor. Book was looking around, clearly dazed, shaking his head, and the girl on the floor was trying to pull herself to her feet. She looked like she was either very drunk or very sick or maybe a strange combination of both. Simon and Jayne had backed into a corner, both of them terrified in a way neither of them could remember ever being before. As if the confusion of two dead men sitting up and three unconscious girls who seemed very off wasn't enough, Mal at that moment sprinted around the doorway, grabbing the door jam and skidding to a stop and then his eyes fell on Wash and then Book and he didn't even seem to see the girls, but he stopped dead in his tracks, looking like he'd seen a ghost.

He looked to Wash, and then to Book, more emotion on his face than Jayne had ever seen, and he took a stumbling step forward, a hand outstretched with fear and tremulous hope on his face.

"You're dead," he said to Wash, and Wash's face contracted in confusion.

"No, I'm not."

The conscious girl had levered herself up and was clinging to the chair that held the brunette with the freckles like her legs were jelly. Mal had glanced at her but that was all he'd done and he took two giant steps forward, pulled Wash away from the chair and crushed him in a hug with tears in his eyes just as Zoe came running into the room. Simon moved forward to Book and put a hand on the older man's forehead; Book seemed dazed and didn't respond. Zoe froze where she stood, eyes brimming with tears, and whispered her husband's name.

"Wash?"

Wash stepped away from Mal and towards his wife.

"Zoe?" he said, his voice layered with confusion, his brow furrowing. "What's going on? Why am I in here?"

Zoe blinked, mouth opening, tears spilling out of her eyes and over her cheeks.

"You don't remember," she said, her voice very quiet and breaking as her eyes shone. Wash looked even more confused than he had before.

"Remember… what?"

"You died," said Jayne with his usual absence of tact and Wash stared at him.

"No I didn't."

"You did," said Zoe.

The girl who was conscious made a quiet noise of pain and the attention shifted from the two should-be-dead's to the four girls.

"What the hell, Simon," said Mal suddenly, turning the full force of his glower onto the young doctor. Simon put his hands up.

"Jayne found them."

"Yeah, operative word bein' _found_," Jayne snapped at Simon before turning his attantion to Mal. "I didn't do it to 'em."

"Well now, that's a relief," said Wash, and Zoe suddenly launched herself at him, grabbing the back of his head and kissing him fiercely. Even the barely conscious blonde girl looked somewhat surprised at the ferocity and desperation and sheer joy of the kiss.

Jayne raised his eyebrows.

"Damn," he said.

Kaylee joined the chaos next and River was right on her trail and questions circled round and round, questions no one could answer. No one paid the slightest attention to the blonde girl for a full five minutes, all of them shouting in that tiny, sterile white room, frustrated because they were happy and didn't know why. The unknown girls were of little to no consequence until River, who was mostly sane these days, stepped up to the blonde girl, her hand outstretched and her head tilted slightly to the side. Wash elbowed Zoe and they slowly fell silent as River approached the blonde girl and the blonde girl stood frozen, looking as though she was straining to stay standing. She looked dizzy, her eyes barely focused and (Jayne still couldn't help noticing) very, very blue. Her hair was a lion-like mane around her round face and she was clinging on to the counter like it was a life boat in the middle of the ocean.

River's outstretched fingers met the girl's cheek and she inhaled sharply, a surprised smile twisting at the corner of her lips.

"You are _time_," she said to the girl. The girl looked as confused as the rest of them felt.

"Excuse me?" said Mal, clearly thinking that River had slipped back into her old insanity.

"You've been taken out of Time and now… now you are Time," River elaborated, though she was clearly speaking only to the blonde girl, her fingers still touching her face.

"You brought them back," River continued, smiling still wider. "You touched them and the Time flowed through you, Time flowed into them. You were pulled forward in Time and Time moved backwards around you."

"What is she saying?" Kaylee asked Simon quietly, her worried eyes fixed on River.

"I… have no idea."

"It's simple," said River, letting her hand fall to her side, fixing Kaylee in that sharp stare of hers. "Something pulled her through Time. And moving through Time is like moving through water- it flows back around a disturbance. And when time flows through something- through a conduit into something else- then Time turns back."

She turned to look at Wash now, but her hand rested on Book's shoulder. "That's what happened. She touched Wash- touched the Shepard- and Time flowed back around them."

River beamed at the blonde. "You are Time."

"Well," said the blonde, very weakly, "I've been called worse."

And then she collapsed onto the ground.

000

The doors to the infirmary were locked and bolted and the crew of the _Serenity _had gathered in the kitchen to discuss the highly intriguing events of the past hour.

"I still don't understand that _time _thing," said Jayne, gesturing loosely with his hands, fixing River in a look that has half stare, half glare and entirely Jayne.

"I still don't understand dying," added Wash, his eyebrows raised.

"I am fully okay with admittin' that I'm confused by this whole situation," said Kaylee, looking around the room with wide eyes. Everyone seemed to be waiting on River to elaborate, but River seemed perfectly to sit in silence with that blasted smirk on her face and let them all stew.

Sometimes Jayne thought he'd liked her better when she'd been crazy.

"You gonna tell us what happened or what?" Mal asked River bluntly, his tone making it clear he was in no mood for riddles or poems. She glanced at him and shrugged.

"I can tell you what I know."

"Oh, please," said Jayne impatiently. "We all know you know everything."

"That girl- and her friends, I presume- were pulled by an outside force through time. No, I don't know what," she said sharply, her eyes flashing to Mal as he opened his mouth to speak. He blinked and slowly closed his mouth again.

"That created a ripple in time," continued River, hers eyes flicking to each other them in turn. "A ripple around those three women, a ripple moving backwards. When she touched Wash and the Shepard, that ripple moving backwards pulled them back. They moved back in their own timelines; that's why they have souls as well as their bodies healing. For them, time _was_ turned back."

There were a few moments of stunned silence as everyone tried to stare at Wash and Book in a polite, tactful way. They all failed miserably.

"Time travel's a myth," said Mal bluntly, turning back to River. "A fairytale."

She gave an odd smile, something very dark behind her eyes. "So are Readers and soldiers hand crafted by governments and then covered up by conspiracy. And yet, here _I _am."

"She does have a point," said Inara, raising her dark brows.

"Do you think it might have been the Alliance that brought them here?" asked the Shepard, looking to every face.

"I don't really see who else it could be," mused Simon.

"Then let's dump them back out and leave before they get here," said Mal, levering himself off the wall. "C'mon, Jayne."

"Wait," said River. Her voice carried a quiet authority; a command not even Mal could ignore. Grudgingly, the captain turned back.

"Yes, darling?" he said, his voice layered in sarcasm hidden behind sincerity. River didn't acknowledge this and folded her arms across her chest.

Jayne watched her cleavage.

"If these four are worth enough for the Alliance to pull them through time," she said, her dark eyes fixed on Mal, "don't you think they might be worth protecting?"

And, like it was a tennis match, every head turned back to Mal. His eyebrows furrowed and he straightened up, staring at a spot above one of the cabinets, clearly thinking hard.

"She has a point, Mal," said Inara. Mal either ignored her or didn't hear her.

"Yeah, cause takin' on fugitives has always gone so _swimmingly_ in the past," said Jayne sarcastically, and Simon and Kaylee both shot him withering glares. River, as usual these days, ignored him. Jayne felt a little slighted.

"We can at least hear their stories," said the Shepard in his calm, placating voice, and at that, Mal's eyes snapped back into focus and he gave a tight smile.

"Alright," he said. "Let's go awaken the sleeping beauties."

"Am I gunna have to kiss somebody?" Jayne asked. Wash gave a melodramatic shudder.

"Yes, what every girl dreams of waking up to. Beard mouth."

"And how would you know?" Jayne shot back. Wash glared at him defensively.

"I've been to… parties."

"On that very disturbing note," said Mal, his back already to them as he headed in the direction of the infirmary, "let's go."

**TBC...**

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><p>"What the Water Gave Me" by Florence and the Machine<p>

A/N:

Thanks to everyone who checks this story out! I hope it's at least semi-entertaining. I'm having fun with it, just goofing off. The chapters will get longer, I'm kinda just posting them at good stopping points for now cause I'm not always sure when I'll be able to write again next. Also, there IS a plot here, it won't just be a collection of snippets or anything like that. There is actually a story. The reason Wash and Book are a live is very simple: I am not okay with them dying. At all. This is how I grieve.

Anyway, i hope this finds everyone well. Please review if you have the time!

AG


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